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Potato Soup

A hearty soup made from beef shank broth, mashed potatoes, and browned onions, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the shank of beef for two days, then strain the broth into a crock and let it sit until needed.

  2. Remove the fat that rises to the top of the broth.

Make the soup

  1. Heat 2 tablespoons of beef fat in a soup pot and brown the sliced onions.

  2. Add half of the beef broth to the pot.

  3. Stir in the mashed potatoes until the mixture is as thick as heavy cream.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef shank
Slow boiling for two days extracts flavour and gelatin into the broth.
Beef fat
Carries flavour and browns the onions, adding richness to the soup.
Onions
Browning in fat builds sweetness and savoury depth in the soup.
Mashed potatoes
Starch thickens the broth, giving the soup a creamy, body-rich texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the mashed potatoes until thick as heavy cream. Potato starch thickens the broth as it is stirred in. Adding too much or stirring too little leaves the soup either pasty or thin, so add gradually and stir until evenly combined.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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